A plot of land is being advertised through a local Estate Agent. It is 32 Ares (0.8 acre) for €25K, which works out at about GBP 5.20 per metre².

It's classified as 'Leisure' use and has a 12m² wooden chalet on it. Its appeal to me is that it is all wooded.

Is there any rough and ready calculation to say how much wood I would be able to farm from this? What else could I do with it? As it's about 12km from home I would not want to go there every day to look after any livestock, and I wouldn't want to stay in the chalet, which looks to me like a big garden shed.

Regardless of the capital cost I'd question whether it could pay its way because of the distance from you. How much wood would you need to harvest to justify the 24 km round trip? A 24km round trip by car would typically work out at about €7 (ish), by the time you count fuel, maintenance and depreciation, so if you do that once a week for one reason or another then the question is how much wood / fuel could you buy for €350 pa? I suspect more than you could reasonably harvest from 1/3 hectare.

Of course if it was next door I'd say go for it, if you want it for amenity value I'd say go for it, but if you want it for profit from wood then it seems unlikely to be viable.

JB (who's been toying with the idea of buying 1.5 acres for £5K but its 10km from home)

Oh dear, I was hoping it would be enough not only to keep me in wood, but let me sell some as well. The interest on €25k would buy a lot of wood at €40 per m³. (I would also need to buy a trailer and use my time)

I have worked out that that I will probably need 30m³ for a Rayburn (cooking, winter HW and some radiators) and 6m³ for a stove in the lounge.

In the UK, there are favourable tax considerations given to ownership of commercial woodland.
These tend to increase the 'worth' of woodland.
Are there any such additional factors in Belgium? (Apart from tax, what about grants, subsidies, incentives...?)

In the UK, there are favourable tax considerations given to ownership of commercial woodland.
These tend to increase the 'worth' of woodland.
Are there any such additional factors in Belgium? (Apart from tax, what about grants, subsidies, incentives...?)

There are loads of different subsidies for everything. Unfortunately they all work by reducing income tax. And I don't pay income tax, just all the other taxes.

Looks kind of scrubby from that image, so the forage there could be quite good. What's on the surrounding land? What kind of trees predominate? What's the undergrowth like? What kind of soil? Any water courses on it?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm trying to figure some things out for foraging on it; there may not be much there you want to forage for yet, but you can work on that.